00:00On 16th April 1853, the first ever passenger train in India chucked from Bombay to Thane,
00:21just 34 kilometres, but it marked a turning point in history.
00:26The British had built railways to tighten their grip on India, moving troops, extracting resources and enforcing control.
00:36But iron rails to more than carry fright. They began carrying people from different regions, languages and cultures into contact with one another.
00:46For the first time, an ordinary farmer from Punjab could meet a merchant from Bengal.
00:51This constant mingling nurtured something the colonial rulers had not anticipated – a sense of India as a shared homeland.
01:00With the speed of trains came the speed of ideas.
01:11Pamphlets, newspapers and political messages travelled from cities to small towns in hours instead of days.
01:17Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi embraced the railways, not in first-class luxury but in crowded third-class compartments speaking directly to ordinary Indians.
01:28Movements like the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920, the Salt March of 1930 and the Quitanya Movement of 1942 all relied on the railways to mobilise thousands.
01:40Trains became arteries of the freedom struggle, circulating not just people but the lifeblood of resistance.
01:57Beyond public rallies, the railways became a covert battleground.
02:00Revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Razad used trains to slip between cities undetected.
02:09Acts of sabotage, removing track segments, halting trains and disrupting supply lines, hit the British where it hurt the most – their communication network.
02:19The most daring of all came in August 1925 – the Kikori Conspiracy.
02:25A group of freedom fighters stopped a train near Kikori seizing government treasury funds.
02:30Ramprasad Bismil, Ashwakullah Khan, Rajidranath Lahiri and Thakur Roshan Singh were executed for their roles.
02:38The act wasn't about theft. It was a defiant statement that the Empire could be challenged.
02:45Even those who worked for the railways joined the call for independence.
02:58In 1925, the All India Railway Men's Federation was formed, fighting for fair treatment and wages,
03:05but also aligning itself with the Nationalist cause.
03:10Strikes and protests by railway workers slowed British operations
03:13and showed solidarity with the larger movement.
03:16Railway stations themselves – Havra, Mumbai VT and Lahore – turned into arenas of defiance.
03:22Slogans rang out, meetings were held under the watch of colonial police,
03:26and passengers witnessed the struggle unfolding right on the platform.
03:31The greatest irony of the Indian Railways is that it was built to serve an empire and ended up serving a nation.
03:47What began as a steel chain to bind India under British control became the very tracks along which the idea of freedom raced.
03:56Today, Indian Railways carries over 23 million passengers a day,
04:00from humble local trains to high-speed Vande Bharat Expresses.
04:05But its legacy is more than engineering.
04:08It is the memory of a network that connected voices, united people, and powered a nation's march to independence.
04:15Thereof.
04:35value thereof.
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